Many types of plant growth require periodic hedging for optimal growth and/or crop yield. As used herein, “plant growth” refers generically to any live vegetation, and is not necessarily restricted to agricultural crops, and “hedging” refers generically to the trimming of such plant growth. Blueberry bushes are one example of plant growth that it is necessary to hedge periodically, both to maximize blueberry production and to facilitate subsequent harvesting of blueberries
Manual hedging is extremely time- and labor-intensive. Available hedging machines suffer from various drawbacks. For example, many machines hedge only one side of a plant, requiring multiple passes for complete hedging. U.S. Pat. No. 6,964,151 shows an example of a cutting device and vehicle that can shape multiple sides of a bush simultaneously, but is poorly suited for complete hedging of plant growth during continuous motion of the vehicle.